Why and how Religious Republicans lie, cheat and steal more

Imagine there was a solid scientific study that showed you how a lawmaker is going to act.

Now imagine that study also addressed how a lawmaker really thinks. Not just his ideas or public positions, but the motivations behind his actions.

Now imagine that study would say Republicans tend to lie, cheat and steal more.

Did I just hear the word "hearsay"? Well, now there's data -- factual evidence -- that shows why Republicans constantly doublethink, doublespeak and defend crazy ideas. I'm not going to advance anything on that, because I would rather you went to the source. However, I'm going to give you a small sample of what I found out, in a book called The Authoritarians:

I would definitely not sit on the same table with the Kentucky and Tennessee representatives.

I usually included some other measure besides the RWA scale on the surveys
I mailed to the state capitols, and accordingly I found that high RWA lawmakers
tended to:

favor a law restricting anti-war protests to certain sizes, times, and places--
generally away from public view--while American troops are fighting
overseas (a very strong relationship)

have a “We were the good guys, the Soviets were the bad guys” view of
the Cold War (a very strong relationship)

oppose a law extending equal rights to homosexuals in housing and
employment (a very strong relationship)

If you have read the preceding chapters, or been paying attention to what’s
going on in your state capitol lately, none of this will astound you. What surprised me
was how strong the relationships usually were. The RWA scale can predict what many
lawmakers want to do about a wide variety of important issues.

The gist of my findings in the book: Republicans / religious types tend to be considerably more authoritarian (for a particular definition of authoritarianism). Authoritarians are split in two groups: the social dominators (lie/cheat/steal/stab/kill because the world's a jungle) and the RWAs (obey the establishment however little sense it may make). Combine sociopaths and henchmen and what do you get?

Oh, as it turns out, they're not much different from Commies in their head. That's covered in chapter 2, I think.